The present invention relates to a cable tie to clamp a wire bundle such as a wiring harness and to fix the same on the body panel of an automobile and the like, and more particularly, the invention relates to a cable tie comprising a belt member and a buckle member.
A conventional cable tie is found in, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 57-190107. As shown in FIG. 5, the prior art cable tie comprises a belt member A1 and a buckle member B1 connected to one end of the belt member A1 which are integrally formed as a unit. The lower surface of the buckle member B1 is formed with an engagement leg C1 which is configured to be insertable into an aperture D1 formed on a base plate E such as a body panel of an automobile. The cable tie is secured to the base plate E by inserting the engagement leg C1 into the aperture D1 on the base plate E. The belt member A1 of the cable tie is looped directly about a wire bundle W, thereby to fix the wire bundle W on the base plate E.
A problem usually associated with the prior art cable tie as described in Japanese Publication No. 57-190107 is that a gap G is formed between the belt member A1 and the wire bundle W because of the existence of the buckle member B1. Therefore, the wire bundle W is not stably fastened.
Another problem usually associated with the prior art cable tie as described in Japanese Publication No. 57-190107 is that the wire bundle W is not sufficiently stably fixed on the base plate E because the wire bundle W is substantially supported only by the belt member A1 looped thereabout. Therefore, the wire bundle W has a rolling motion caused by vibration of the base plate E, which tends to destroy the wire bundle W, the cable tie or other members positioned near the wire bundle W.
A further problem usually associated with the prior art cable tie is that the distance is great between the clamped wire bundle W and the surface of the base plate E because the wire bundle W is supported on the buckle member B1. Therefore, large space is required to position the wire bundle W on the base plate E.
Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Publication No. 57-143161 teaches a cable tie which may minimize such problems. As shown in FIG. 6, the prior art cable tie comprises a belt member A2 and a buckle member 82 wherein an engagement leg C2 is provided on the belt member A2 in place of the buckle member B2 to decrease the distance between the wire bundle W and the base plate E when the wire bundle W is clamped by the belt member A2.
The cable tie described in Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Publication No. 57-143161 effectively eliminates the third problem associated with the cable tie described in the Publication No. 57-190107 but does not yet eliminate the first and second problems associated with the cable tie described in the Publication No. 57-190107. Further, such a cable tie includes a new Problem that a user can not sufficiently pull the free end of the belt member A2 to fasten the wire bundle W tightly because the base Plate E prevents travel of the belt member A2. This results from the specific arrangement that the belt member A2 of the cable tie has to be inserted into an insertion opening of the buckle member B2 in such a way that the free end of the belt member A2 faces to the base plate E.